Even the best speaker manufacturers build speakers to a marketable price point with a desired level of performance. Unfortunately, the crossover is often the sacrificial lamb in many instances. Danny @ GR Research usually replaces cheap iron-core inductors with air-core inductors, electrolytic caps with Poly caps, sand-cast resistors with metal foil resistors, and steel binding posts with his beloved tube connectors. He also sometimes changes crossover component values to smooth the response, improve spectral decay, and improve off-axis response. Danny also tames cabinet resonance with his No-Rez damping material. I would buy these kits and add some additional bracing while I was inside the cabinets. I trust GR research to do it right, but I cannot vouch for other UA-camrs.
GR never needed any validation, all you need is a parts catelog and look up what the crossover parts in your speaker cost. Speakers are built to a pricepoint and asthetics usually have priority. Crossovers are hidden away.
3:10 not exactly, since often the upgrades cost more than the speaker. There are 2 issues, the design and the parts quality. I bet you that 90% of the time Danny redesigns the crossover, you'd get more improvement by building that with cheap(ish) parts than just sticking in better ones for what is already there.
If you don't understand how a crossover works, then you don't understand this! Crossover does a lot more than many people know. Some are connected in parallel and some are connected in series. Some coils have a coupling capacitor over them. Some crossover circuits lower frequency peaks. Not as easy as many people think! If you put this together incorrectly, it doesn't help how good parts you have. Not a single crossover recipe for all speakers, no. A frequency peak doesn't get lower even if you use an expensive component.
In my experience the quality of crossover parts makes a huge difference not only when upgrading from very cheap to high quality, but also when upgrading from high quality to extremely high quality. I built the external crossover for my Tuscanini planar magnetic speakers (under instructions from the manufacturer) using high quality parts (claritycap MR capacitors, mundorf foil inductor, Jantzen air core inductor, Jantzen supreme resistor) and it did sound very good, approximately 300€ of components. Recently I did a massive upgrade of all the components using Duelund cast copper foil capacitors, huge Jantzen waxed foil inductor and heavy gauge air core inductor, Duelund resistor, silver soldering and audioquest top quality cabling inside. It was the most impressive and transformative change in my systems performance I have ever experienced, even more than upgrading preamp or tonearm. Sure I spent quite a bit of money but it was well spent. Obviously the speaker itself has to be worth the investment. It was a much bigger change than going from the relatively cheap internal crossover to the first external crossover I built. Duelund stuff highly recommended (not the wire though, that I really don’t like)
I have the classic B&W Matrix 800s. My friend who designs and upgrades crossovers upgraded my crossovers for the Tweeters and midrange and wow what a difference then the originals from the early 90s.
Obviously referring to Danny GR Research! Love his vids! He knows what he is doing! Can't say I agree with everything he says. But in general, he's Mr Xover! One issue I have with his approach is when he uses additional passive components to smooth response in narrow regions. Like a notch filter instead of finding the physical anomaly causing it. e.g. a bump at 2Khz might be from doubling distortion from a 1Khz signal. Or additional energy from cabinet edge reflection. But he has so much to contribute to our knowledge base. And is fun to watch! Though he doesn't say what his best zero to 60 is?
There's certainly a lot of people doing it, both forums and groups on social media is places to get and share ideas about this. Some popular speakers not only benefit from higher quality parts but from correcting the respons that's tailored to selling speakers quickly in the shops.
Quality of x-over parts is incredibly important! Whats paramount is how those parts are chosen by the designer and implemented in such a way to blend the drivers together while extracting the most performance from them. Thats the part that requires some skill and real world talent.
Beside the primary job of the crossover, there's certainly something to be gained by paying attention to the signal path itself which is where higher end crossover components may provide benefits beyond whatever "slopes" are being employed within the design.
Oh yes 😊.... the many hours of testing and developing XO networks so they sound perfect ... there's so many parameters involved within each element in the network ... Paul summarised the relative significance of the basic parts of a speaker perfectly... Designing a XO network is done using various pieces of software and STIIL requires human intervention as modelling is one thing and reality is quite another. I refuse to use gating to eliminate boundary reflections... opting for total free field measurement.
Yes it’s real. I competed the upgrade from GR Research on a set of Klipsch RF7-IIIs. The difference was night and day. Tonality was vastly improved. The drivers actually start and stop when they are supposed to. The harshness of the high frequencies are much smoother. Transient response was improved. Bass is tighter with a much more even response. The parts are of very high quality. Soldering was done directly to the drivers.
after the experience of that success story, what is your advice for me buying new speakers and the process of upgrading? I'm a little lower on budget but if I got much better sound then I could justify the stretch. I'm asking two things what cheap speaker should I have upgraded or spend more on the inital speaker and not upgrade? Such as could I send the entry level Klipsch and get most of the way there? Or do you recommend somthing else?
@@trauma50disaster1 That's a tough one to answer. The only reason I did the upgrade is because already had the RF7s and didn't want to spend 3x the amount on a new set of speakers comparable to the performance of the crossover upgrade. However I would say If you want to flat out buy a speaker that has even close to the same level of internal parts quality you are going to have to spend +$10k to get there. If you want to stick with entry level Klipsch, I would recommend the reference premier level with anything version 2 (RP-8000F II). Reason being, Klipsch has corrected the frequency response in the new versions which make a noticeable difference let alone still containing the same level of parts quality. So you wouldn't necessarily have to do an upgrade, and I don't think GR Research has an upgrade kit for that version just yet. Or you could buy version 1s and then purchase the upgrade kit for those.
I actually think xover is more important then drivers to a degree. Ive taken average tweeters and just adding something like the Solen caps can improve the sound by a big amount. Higher quality speakers usually give higher power handling, bigger voice coils, bigger magnets.
The majority of the main stream speaker manufacturers have to work to a price point. The look of the speaker plays a big part in peoples buying choice and this is where a lot of manufacturers bias their efforts. While for the most part, the crossover design is OK, and most people will never see the parts as they hidden inside the cabinet, this is where the costs are kept down. For me this is the issue, because the crossover is a very very import part of the speaker as a whole. Get it wrong and the speaker could sound bright, fatiguing and harsh and have all sorts of phasing issues, nulls, bumps in the response etc. The opposite also happens where the speaker sounds dull and lifeless. Assuming for a moment the design is good, increasing the quality of the parts and using the best you can afford in the signal path makes a big difference. How mad you have to go on the parts is debatable. But what is the point of spending a ton of money on equipment and cables only to be let down by a poor quality crossover in the speaker??? It would be great if manufacturers would cut back on the exotic cabinet finishes and spend the money on components, but how many "audiophiles" would buy a fantastic sounding speaker finished in plain MDF???
There is also the profit margin, the dealers margin and markering margins all working together to reduce the actual value. DIY builds will bypass all of that and DIY upgrades can help put that value back in sometimes.
What about original large advents? Some people say to just replace the electrolytics with same, others say to upgrade to film(?) But then I've heard that films might make the tweeter stand out too much etc.. maybe I'll just have to experiment. Thanks
Always remember the driver for frequencies in the range we would call "midrange" were actually called "honkers" (i.e. woofers, honkers and tweeters by reason of their sound range)
@@HansDelbruck53 okay you got me it was definitely a typo, squawkers is definitely a word and it does make sense, and it's the name of the mid-range horn.
A speaker element does not have a flat, straight frequency response. The job of a speaker crossover. is to create a flat response. Crossover has two jobs, one of which is to only let the midrange or treble only get midrange and treble frequencies and the bass only get bass frequencies. The second is to lower frequencies the speaker has too much of. If the crossover is not put together correctly in relation to the speaker and you have sharp treble or midrange frequencies, you can use the world's best crossover parts without getting the right sound. On cheap speakers with sound problems, it's not as easy as just changing to good parts and the sound is perfect. In the same way that if you have too much salt in your food, it doesn't matter how good the quality of the salt is. But if you take a speaker with GOOD sound and change from, for example, electrolytic capacitors to polypropylene, then it is a small upgrade.
Levitating Infinity speakers? Get the graphics department to put shadows under the artificial background of the speakers and units behind to match the shadow cast by Paul! I guess a kind of "visual crossover" for reality and the virtual? LOL...
Always remember the bottom line dictates cost/profit. More often than not you get off the shelf drivers , mediocre crossover parts and cabinets that are prettier than They are optimal .it's a balance and shedding costs are the priority in most cases .
Bad quality caps make sound harsh.. and good quality caps make sound smooth.. You can only measure it by taking acoustic measurements and see how harmonics distortion curve behave. With two different quality caps, you may see same exactly fundamental frequency behavior but with good quality caps the harmonics distortion generally tend to have more lower distortion percentage and less jagged curve.
@@Acoustic-Lab Let me then; although no improvement is without merit and without arguing over actual, proven audibility threshold, one can clearly see, that the drivers themselves are the main contributing factor in the overall THD level, with the most advanced units measuring worse, than an ordinary, industrial grade, smd electrolytic capacitor. Since, this is however the only easy "improvement" path accessible to eager amateurs with no engineering background, nor a workshop, benefits are exaggerated and prices inflated.
A friend of mine knows a bespoke speaker builder that claims he even rebuilt a Magico (overly expensive brand) crossover with better parts and it sounded way better. Can't imagine a +$100.000 speaker using cheap components. Any comments on that?
Because of the way commerce works production cost must be a low as possible because each cent is multiplied in the chain. That is way cheap parts are used as much as possible or the speakers would cost a lot more.
So you dont think $2,000 speakers can afford to use the best crossover parts! A 1st order crossover is simplest, dont that mean cheapest. Best speakers there are have no crossover, spend nothing.
@@myronhelton4441oh, and I'd love to see your full range (20hz to 20khz) speaker with no crossover. I'd be surprised if the frequency response was within +-10dB. Plus, distortion and energy storage would likely be horrendous. A driver capable of moving enough air for 90dB at 40hz (let alone 20hz) is never going to work at 20khz. Directivity would also be a total nightmare. Oh, and off-axis phase issues with a first order crossover can be horrendous, as would be controlling cone breakup from drivers operating out of their preferred ranges.
@@RacingAnt I back up what I say, I dont out of the blue say first order crossovers are not the best, without giving any evidence. Most of the best speakers in the world use first order crossovers. i have heard all of these speakers that sound the best with them. Sonus Faber, Harbeth, Dynaudio, old Thiel speakers, Totem, Audiovector, Green Mountain, Revel, PSB, Vandersteen. A very good tweeter must be used, so it dont blow up. Also these speakers by far are MOST of the best selling speakers in the world that is considered audiophile. Where have you been by not hearing or seeing these speakers. You dont read Stereophile.. Seas & Scanspeck drivers from Norway are considered the best that go into most of these speakers. I have 3 pair of speakers with no crossover that sounds wonderful, the company went out of business & I dont understand how it works. The clearest sounding tweeters are first order crossover. Great tweeters dont distort with first order crossovers. These crossovers sound the best, because y are usually the simplest circuits that dont hurt the sound. I have Morel & Monitor Audio that are considered great speakers, but they are not quite as clear as first order crossovers. My Sonus Fabers, the mids play loudest just like a piano does. Most speaker designers say flat speakers sound bad. But my Green Mountain play flat. The Sonus Faber silk dome tweeter slightly distorts, but everyone says these are the best speakers they ever heard. It may be the natural silk fibers doing this. Also the Sonus speakers have stronger mids, just like a piano does. Many speakers designers say a flat frequency response on speakers sound terrible. Both kinds of sound is great, & thats a fact. Some old tube microphones, & tube amps & records slightly distort that people say are the best. Dolby Noise Reductions stops cassette tape distortaion, but the highs you cant hear, making it sound terrible. People have different opinions that are wrong, because I listen to the best speakers in the world that all have first order crossovers, thats a fact. 80% of my records & cds have perfect sound. I play musical instruments. I know exactly how so many speakers sound & my ears knows great sound. I dont work on stuff or study math to know sound., I wih I could work on speakers, like you do. I have heard people say that a 2.5 way speaker can be more efficint to sound best. I saw a 2.5 way Canadian PSB speaker with two 6.5 inch woofers in a tower speaker with each woofer in 2 seperate chambers that are different sizes in the same tower speaker. My speakers with no crossover, the speakers are real efficient, but it took them a while to break in to not be harsh. I hate harsh equipment. A 2.5 way tower speaker can play full range like a 2 way crossover speaker to have less of a crossover problem.
@@Fastvoiceyep. More components, larger values, equals more stored energy and signal degradation, plus issues with phase changes can create its own issues. Nothing is straightforward with audio. Everything is a compromise.
There's no way in hell Paul will go against Danny. High-quality caps and resistors are a real thing. This isn't a game. Just adding a dayton dpr resistor in your crossover improves the spund quality of your tweeter by a mile, farless those mills which I have personally tested.
A CFAC Inductor and MIT, PP film/Polystyrene, caps, in a first order filter @ 177Hz make the Auricle planar magnetic/ (2) Morel 6 inch woofers in 12 foot long, schedule 40, pvc, waveguides, in a single OTL amp/channel, shine.
Whilst I dont doubt the engineering here, I think there are caveats that are too often unstated, and the notion that Manufactures are skimping on parts is compelling. But you have to remember opening up the speaker and upgrading the parts has a non trivial cost, likey the work of GR research and the l can be transformative but you have to factor in your time or a vendor and the price of the upgrade, so why not just buy the more expensive speaker in the first place? My car would go faster if I got the V8, the at source parts cost in only likely + $100 for the manufacturer but maybee $5K to the buyer, it's not a rip off its the economics of doing business and staying in business
I think that there are people trying to extract some money from every caveat. The less mesurable the effect of their work the better for them. Just listening to the guy from GS Research gives me snake Oli salesman vibes.
It's a hobby for a lot of people as well, and today with the false economy being at an all time high it's not that difficult to improve things for a relatively small sum. Moving up in price of the original purchase price is unfortunately just diving deeper into the bad economy from several brands, best value right now is DIY (knocking a zero of the price is doable in some price ranges).
@@AnthorOnetalking rubbish he measures in detail. Most reviews dont do that, purely subjective rubbish. He talks about the drivers and cab too, you make up your own mind if worth doing or not. He is not selling snake oil.
Danny has taken apart several "more expensive" speakers and shown that a lot of those also use crap parts and most of the time have response issues that also need correcting. On the flip side he has taken a few that had really nice responses but used cheap parts, but does mention they were targeted at a lower price point, so he doesn't redesign the xo, but just uses higher quality parts.
Only if the specs detail all that is audible which, many times, they don't. Your statement is far too broad. Imagine saying two foods with the same sugars, proteins, and salt will taste the same. Not true because there are likely hundreds of flavor triggers that would need to be documented and measured.
I use electrolytics in the mids and have done fine with them. To me, electrolytics sometimes sound less edgy than some "super caps" that audiophiles fetish.
Yes and no. Some of the standard crossovers are poorly designed or made from poor quality parts. They can definitely sound better by upgrading them. Now, how you make the drivers sound is a whole different discussion. I think a speaker should be flat, and you raise certain frequencies through the use of a preamp.
He never actually shows you what changes he makes to the crossover circuit, only the results and components. I know that he does baffle step compensation but it is clouded in mystery. Different capacitors makes sense when you are talking about an electrochemical component. Air cored inductors makes sense avoiding hysteresis. I do wonder how much bull there is about his dislike of steel in the signal path, it doesn't make any sense to me.
@ianbigsand7 I'm wondering if you're disingenuous or you saw just one of his videos because he shows it very often. He always shows the direct results of the upgrades. He also talks about the effect of different materials on the signal path, and I believe it does. But again, it comes down to preference. Most folks would be happy with the stuff that comes with the speakers.
Even the best speaker manufacturers build speakers to a marketable price point with a desired level of performance. Unfortunately, the crossover is often the sacrificial lamb in many instances. Danny @ GR Research usually replaces cheap iron-core inductors with air-core inductors, electrolytic caps with Poly caps, sand-cast resistors with metal foil resistors, and steel binding posts with his beloved tube connectors. He also sometimes changes crossover component values to smooth the response, improve spectral decay, and improve off-axis response. Danny also tames cabinet resonance with his No-Rez damping material. I would buy these kits and add some additional bracing while I was inside the cabinets. I trust GR research to do it right, but I cannot vouch for other UA-camrs.
Sounds like Paul supports GR Research’s position on the effects of quality crossover parts 100%
Yep and i do as well!
GR never needed any validation, all you need is a parts catelog and look up what the crossover parts in your speaker cost. Speakers are built to a pricepoint and asthetics usually have priority. Crossovers are hidden away.
@@jondonnelly4831 catalog
3:10 not exactly, since often the upgrades cost more than the speaker.
There are 2 issues, the design and the parts quality. I bet you that 90% of the time Danny redesigns the crossover, you'd get more improvement by building that with cheap(ish) parts than just sticking in better ones for what is already there.
If you don't understand how a crossover works, then you don't understand this!
Crossover does a lot more than many people know. Some are connected in parallel and some are connected in series. Some coils have a coupling capacitor over them. Some crossover circuits lower frequency peaks.
Not as easy as many people think!
If you put this together incorrectly, it doesn't help how good parts you have. Not a single crossover recipe for all speakers, no.
A frequency peak doesn't get lower even if you use an expensive component.
In my experience the quality of crossover parts makes a huge difference not only when upgrading from very cheap to high quality, but also when upgrading from high quality to extremely high quality. I built the external crossover for my Tuscanini planar magnetic speakers (under instructions from the manufacturer) using high quality parts (claritycap MR capacitors, mundorf foil inductor, Jantzen air core inductor, Jantzen supreme resistor) and it did sound very good, approximately 300€ of components. Recently I did a massive upgrade of all the components using Duelund cast copper foil capacitors, huge Jantzen waxed foil inductor and heavy gauge air core inductor, Duelund resistor, silver soldering and audioquest top quality cabling inside. It was the most impressive and transformative change in my systems performance I have ever experienced, even more than upgrading preamp or tonearm. Sure I spent quite a bit of money but it was well spent. Obviously the speaker itself has to be worth the investment.
It was a much bigger change than going from the relatively cheap internal crossover to the first external crossover I built. Duelund stuff highly recommended (not the wire though, that I really don’t like)
I think Vlad is talking about Danny from GR Research.
And others.
No
I have the classic B&W Matrix 800s. My friend who designs and upgrades crossovers upgraded my crossovers for the Tweeters and midrange and wow what a difference then the originals from the early 90s.
I’ve done some myself, and now have the Northcreek X-overs. Transforms the speaker to what I thought was great to really great.
Obviously referring to Danny GR Research! Love his vids! He knows what he is doing! Can't say I agree with everything he says. But in general, he's Mr Xover! One issue I have with his approach is when he uses additional passive components to smooth response in narrow regions. Like a notch filter instead of finding the physical anomaly causing it. e.g. a bump at 2Khz might be from doubling distortion from a 1Khz signal. Or additional energy from cabinet edge reflection.
But he has so much to contribute to our knowledge base. And is fun to watch! Though he doesn't say what his best zero to 60 is?
A good quality crossover can make magic in loudspeakers
Got there in the last minute. Good job Paul!
Thanks, Paul. That helps me with my question from yesterday about crossovers.
Great video/reminder about crossover design. Just great.
There's certainly a lot of people doing it, both forums and groups on social media is places to get and share ideas about this.
Some popular speakers not only benefit from higher quality parts but from correcting the respons that's tailored to selling speakers quickly in the shops.
Older speakers can benefit a lot, partially because the capacitors are not working as well anymore.
Say no to cheesy parts
Quality of x-over parts is incredibly important! Whats paramount is how those parts are chosen by the designer and implemented in such a way to blend the drivers together while extracting the most performance from them. Thats the part that requires some skill and real world talent.
I was wondering about this too. Nice to hear the confirmation.
Paul is like the Mr Rogers except he's got cool speakers and amps instead of Puppets and Slippers.
Beside the primary job of the crossover, there's certainly something to be gained by paying attention to the signal path itself which is where higher end crossover components may provide benefits beyond whatever "slopes" are being employed within the design.
Oh yes 😊.... the many hours of testing and developing XO networks so they sound perfect ... there's so many parameters involved within each element in the network ...
Paul summarised the relative significance of the basic parts of a speaker perfectly...
Designing a XO network is done using various pieces of software and STIIL requires human intervention as modelling is one thing and reality is quite another. I refuse to use gating to eliminate boundary reflections... opting for total free field measurement.
Further validation for Danny at GR Research.
thanks Paul
Yes it’s real. I competed the upgrade from GR Research on a set of Klipsch RF7-IIIs. The difference was night and day. Tonality was vastly improved. The drivers actually start and stop when they are supposed to. The harshness of the high frequencies are much smoother. Transient response was improved. Bass is tighter with a much more even response. The parts are of very high quality. Soldering was done directly to the drivers.
after the experience of that success story, what is your advice for me buying new speakers and the process of upgrading? I'm a little lower on budget but if I got much better sound then I could justify the stretch. I'm asking two things what cheap speaker should I have upgraded or spend more on the inital speaker and not upgrade? Such as could I send the entry level Klipsch and get most of the way there? Or do you recommend somthing else?
@@trauma50disaster1 That's a tough one to answer. The only reason I did the upgrade is because already had the RF7s and didn't want to spend 3x the amount on a new set of speakers comparable to the performance of the crossover upgrade. However I would say If you want to flat out buy a speaker that has even close to the same level of internal parts quality you are going to have to spend +$10k to get there. If you want to stick with entry level Klipsch, I would recommend the reference premier level with anything version 2 (RP-8000F II). Reason being, Klipsch has corrected the frequency response in the new versions which make a noticeable difference let alone still containing the same level of parts quality. So you wouldn't necessarily have to do an upgrade, and I don't think GR Research has an upgrade kit for that version just yet. Or you could buy version 1s and then purchase the upgrade kit for those.
Love ya paul!!!
thanks Paul... sooo nice inf0
Thanks Paul for answering!
You're really the one I trust.
Paul, danny, erin, amir you can trust them too..
I actually think xover is more important then drivers to a degree. Ive taken average tweeters and just adding something like the Solen caps can improve the sound by a big amount. Higher quality speakers usually give higher power handling, bigger voice coils, bigger magnets.
The designer of Duntech speakers felt the same way.
The majority of the main stream speaker manufacturers have to work to a price point. The look of the speaker plays a big part in peoples buying choice and this is where a lot of manufacturers bias their efforts. While for the most part, the crossover design is OK, and most people will never see the parts as they hidden inside the cabinet, this is where the costs are kept down.
For me this is the issue, because the crossover is a very very import part of the speaker as a whole. Get it wrong and the speaker could sound bright, fatiguing and harsh and have all sorts of phasing issues, nulls, bumps in the response etc. The opposite also happens where the speaker sounds dull and lifeless.
Assuming for a moment the design is good, increasing the quality of the parts and using the best you can afford in the signal path makes a big difference. How mad you have to go on the parts is debatable. But what is the point of spending a ton of money on equipment and cables only to be let down by a poor quality crossover in the speaker???
It would be great if manufacturers would cut back on the exotic cabinet finishes and spend the money on components, but how many "audiophiles" would buy a fantastic sounding speaker finished in plain MDF???
There is also the profit margin, the dealers margin and markering margins all working together to reduce the actual value. DIY builds will bypass all of that and DIY upgrades can help put that value back in sometimes.
What about original large advents? Some people say to just replace the electrolytics with same, others say to upgrade to film(?) But then I've heard that films might make the tweeter stand out too much etc.. maybe I'll just have to experiment. Thanks
Always remember the driver for frequencies in the range we would call "midrange" were actually called "honkers" (i.e. woofers, honkers and tweeters by reason of their sound range)
When were they called honkers?
In Klipsch Heritage speakers the mid-ranges are called Squakers!
@@chelillingworth9466 That makes no sense whatsoever. Squakers is not even a word.
@@HansDelbruck53 okay you got me it was definitely a typo, squawkers is definitely a word and it does make sense, and it's the name of the mid-range horn.
Squaker is a HiFi Freudian slip ...
A speaker element does not have a flat, straight frequency response. The job of a speaker crossover. is to create a flat response. Crossover has two jobs, one of which is to only let the midrange or treble only get midrange and treble frequencies and the bass only get bass frequencies. The second is to lower frequencies the speaker has too much of. If the crossover is not put together correctly in relation to the speaker and you have sharp treble or midrange frequencies, you can use the world's best crossover parts without getting the right sound. On cheap speakers with sound problems, it's not as easy as just changing to good parts and the sound is perfect. In the same way that if you have too much salt in your food, it doesn't matter how good the quality of the salt is. But if you take a speaker with GOOD sound and change from, for example, electrolytic capacitors to polypropylene, then it is a small upgrade.
I was thinking to upgrade my large Advent speaker crossovers i have in storage, any ideas?
Levitating Infinity speakers? Get the graphics department to put shadows under the artificial background of the speakers and units behind to match the shadow cast by Paul! I guess a kind of "visual crossover" for reality and the virtual? LOL...
Always remember the bottom line dictates cost/profit. More often than not you get off the shelf drivers , mediocre crossover parts and cabinets that are prettier than They are optimal .it's a balance and shedding costs are the priority in most cases .
I fw Paul heavy
Bad quality caps make sound harsh.. and good quality caps make sound smooth..
You can only measure it by taking acoustic measurements and see how harmonics distortion curve behave.
With two different quality caps, you may see same exactly fundamental frequency behavior but with good quality caps the harmonics distortion generally tend to have more lower distortion percentage and less jagged curve.
Have you ever seen harmonic distortion plot of a speaker?
@@paulb4661 yes.. why?
@@Acoustic-Lab What is, on average, the THD level of a midrange driver, for example and that of a capacitor, if you may, please?
@@Acoustic-Lab Let me then; although no improvement is without merit and without arguing over actual, proven audibility threshold, one can clearly see, that the drivers themselves are the main contributing factor in the overall THD level, with the most advanced units measuring worse, than an ordinary, industrial grade, smd electrolytic capacitor. Since, this is however the only easy "improvement" path accessible to eager amateurs with no engineering background, nor a workshop, benefits are exaggerated and prices inflated.
A friend of mine knows a bespoke speaker builder that claims he even rebuilt a Magico (overly expensive brand) crossover with better parts and it sounded way better. Can't imagine a +$100.000 speaker using cheap components. Any comments on that?
Because of the way commerce works production cost must be a low as possible because each cent is multiplied in the chain. That is way cheap parts are used as much as possible or the speakers would cost a lot more.
So you dont think $2,000 speakers can afford to use the best crossover parts! A 1st order crossover is simplest, dont that mean cheapest. Best speakers there are have no crossover, spend nothing.
@@myronhelton4441 no. Using the $400 crossover parts that GR Research push would likely add $4000 to the price of those $2000 speakers.
@@myronhelton4441oh, and I'd love to see your full range (20hz to 20khz) speaker with no crossover. I'd be surprised if the frequency response was within +-10dB. Plus, distortion and energy storage would likely be horrendous. A driver capable of moving enough air for 90dB at 40hz (let alone 20hz) is never going to work at 20khz. Directivity would also be a total nightmare. Oh, and off-axis phase issues with a first order crossover can be horrendous, as would be controlling cone breakup from drivers operating out of their preferred ranges.
@@RacingAnt I back up what I say, I dont out of the blue say first order crossovers are not the best, without giving any evidence. Most of the best speakers in the world use first order crossovers. i have heard all of these speakers that sound the best with them. Sonus Faber, Harbeth, Dynaudio, old Thiel speakers, Totem, Audiovector, Green Mountain, Revel, PSB, Vandersteen. A very good tweeter must be used, so it dont blow up. Also these speakers by far are MOST of the best selling speakers in the world that is considered audiophile. Where have you been by not hearing or seeing these speakers. You dont read Stereophile.. Seas & Scanspeck drivers from Norway are considered the best that go into most of these speakers. I have 3 pair of speakers with no crossover that sounds wonderful, the company went out of business & I dont understand how it works. The clearest sounding tweeters are first order crossover. Great tweeters dont distort with first order crossovers. These crossovers sound the best, because y are usually the simplest circuits that dont hurt the sound. I have Morel & Monitor Audio that are considered great speakers, but they are not quite as clear as first order crossovers. My Sonus Fabers, the mids play loudest just like a piano does. Most speaker designers say flat speakers sound bad. But my Green Mountain play flat. The Sonus Faber silk dome tweeter slightly distorts, but everyone says these are the best speakers they ever heard. It may be the natural silk fibers doing this. Also the Sonus speakers have stronger mids, just like a piano does. Many speakers designers say a flat frequency response on speakers sound terrible. Both kinds of sound is great, & thats a fact. Some old tube microphones, & tube amps & records slightly distort that people say are the best. Dolby Noise Reductions stops cassette tape distortaion, but the highs you cant hear, making it sound terrible. People have different opinions that are wrong, because I listen to the best speakers in the world that all have first order crossovers, thats a fact. 80% of my records & cds have perfect sound. I play musical instruments. I know exactly how so many speakers sound & my ears knows great sound. I dont work on stuff or study math to know sound., I wih I could work on speakers, like you do. I have heard people say that a 2.5 way speaker can be more efficint to sound best. I saw a 2.5 way Canadian PSB speaker with two 6.5 inch woofers in a tower speaker with each woofer in 2 seperate chambers that are different sizes in the same tower speaker. My speakers with no crossover, the speakers are real efficient, but it took them a while to break in to not be harsh. I hate harsh equipment. A 2.5 way tower speaker can play full range like a 2 way crossover speaker to have less of a crossover problem.
What about changing inductors to air core and increasing the order of filters?
A steeper crossover slope is not always an improvement.
@@Fastvoiceyep. More components, larger values, equals more stored energy and signal degradation, plus issues with phase changes can create its own issues. Nothing is straightforward with audio. Everything is a compromise.
Shahinian acoustics best speakers ever
Probably gr research
Hi Paul, please talk about rotary subwoofers!
Get a full range Electrostatic LS and that worry is behind you ...😂
There's no way in hell Paul will go against Danny. High-quality caps and resistors are a real thing. This isn't a game. Just adding a dayton dpr resistor in your crossover improves the spund quality of your tweeter by a mile, farless those mills which I have personally tested.
A CFAC Inductor and MIT, PP film/Polystyrene, caps, in a first order filter @ 177Hz make the Auricle planar magnetic/ (2) Morel 6 inch woofers in 12 foot long, schedule 40, pvc, waveguides, in a single OTL amp/channel, shine.
Whilst I dont doubt the engineering here, I think there are caveats that are too often unstated, and the notion that Manufactures are skimping on parts is compelling. But you have to remember opening up the speaker and upgrading the parts has a non trivial cost, likey the work of GR research and the l can be transformative but you have to factor in your time or a vendor and the price of the upgrade, so why not just buy the more expensive speaker in the first place? My car would go faster if I got the V8, the at source parts cost in only likely + $100 for the manufacturer but maybee $5K to the buyer, it's not a rip off its the economics of doing business and staying in business
I think that there are people trying to extract some money from every caveat. The less mesurable the effect of their work the better for them. Just listening to the guy from GS Research gives me snake Oli salesman vibes.
It's a hobby for a lot of people as well, and today with the false economy being at an all time high it's not that difficult to improve things for a relatively small sum.
Moving up in price of the original purchase price is unfortunately just diving deeper into the bad economy from several brands, best value right now is DIY (knocking a zero of the price is doable in some price ranges).
GR has done MuCH of the WoRK for YOU. You have the design😂 you have testing. What more do you want?
@@AnthorOnetalking rubbish he measures in detail. Most reviews dont do that, purely subjective rubbish. He talks about the drivers and cab too, you make up your own mind if worth doing or not. He is not selling snake oil.
Danny has taken apart several "more expensive" speakers and shown that a lot of those also use crap parts and most of the time have response issues that also need correcting. On the flip side he has taken a few that had really nice responses but used cheap parts, but does mention they were targeted at a lower price point, so he doesn't redesign the xo, but just uses higher quality parts.
Nobody likes calling the mid-range the "squawker"
If two parts have the same specs, they perform the same.
Only if the specs detail all that is audible which, many times, they don't. Your statement is far too broad. Imagine saying two foods with the same sugars, proteins, and salt will taste the same. Not true because there are likely hundreds of flavor triggers that would need to be documented and measured.
Best thing is to just eliminate the crossover altogether.
I use electrolytics in the mids and have done fine with them. To me, electrolytics sometimes sound less edgy than some "super caps" that audiophiles fetish.
GR Research. I think he's full of it. He likes the speakers to sound a certain way so he tries to make all speakers sound the same. All opinion.
Danny at gr research is a big fan of verum. The guy at Verum seems to be a bit of an arsehole.
Yes and no. Some of the standard crossovers are poorly designed or made from poor quality parts. They can definitely sound better by upgrading them. Now, how you make the drivers sound is a whole different discussion. I think a speaker should be flat, and you raise certain frequencies through the use of a preamp.
He never actually shows you what changes he makes to the crossover circuit, only the results and components. I know that he does baffle step compensation but it is clouded in mystery.
Different capacitors makes sense when you are talking about an electrochemical component. Air cored inductors makes sense avoiding hysteresis.
I do wonder how much bull there is about his dislike of steel in the signal path, it doesn't make any sense to me.
@@dangerzone007I now need to find verum and make up my own mind about his arseholery
@ianbigsand7 I'm wondering if you're disingenuous or you saw just one of his videos because he shows it very often. He always shows the direct results of the upgrades. He also talks about the effect of different materials on the signal path, and I believe it does. But again, it comes down to preference. Most folks would be happy with the stuff that comes with the speakers.
Woofers are woofing and tweeters are tweeting!
And the 'mids are midding', I wanted him to say if and he did.
I don't have any crossover parts in my loudspeakers.
I tri-amp.
So you have crossovers in the signal path to split it in three signals before amping.
What kind of external crossover do you use? I would like to hear all about it.
You run full bandwidth through all 3 amps?
@@Pete.across.the.street Active crossovers between preamp and each amp.
@@EskWIRED Two stereo Biamp SM/23 crossovers. I'm trying to replace them with a FreeDSP Aurora.